THE PRESIDENT: It's getting close to voting time, and
I am here to ask for your help. (Applause.) Get your friends
and neighbors to go to the polls. Remind people we have
a duty to vote. And when you get them headed to the polls
-- and by the way, don't overlook discerning Democrats
-- (laughter) -- people like Senator Zell Miller. (Applause.)
When you get them headed to the polls, remind them, if
they want a safer America, a stronger America, and a better
America, to put me and Dick Cheney back in office. (Applause.)

I want to thank you all for coming. It's a great way to
start a Saturday morning -- at the ballpark with a lot
of great Americans. (Applause.) I'm so happy that Laura
is traveling with me today. (Applause.) Today I'm going
to talk about why I think you need to put me back in office
for four more years, but perhaps the most important reason
of all is so that Laura is the First Lady for four more
years. (Applause.)

My running mate, Dick Cheney, is out working hard. Listen,
I readily concede he does not have the waviest hair in
the race. (Laughter.) You'll be happy to hear I didn't
pick him because of his hairdo. (Laughter.) I picked him
because of his judgment and his experience and he's getting
the job done for the American people. (Applause.)

I'm proud of my brother, Jeb. (Applause.) When the hurricanes
hit this part of your state, I came by to try to lend my
support, to remind people that the federal government will
do everything we can do to help the people of this part
of the world get their feet back on the ground. But your
Governor showed great compassion and great leadership.
(Applause.)

I want to thank Connie Mack for joining us today. He represented
this state and this district with such class and dignity.
I'm proud that his son, Connie Mack, IV, is running for
the United States Congress. Nothing -- (applause) -- there's
nothing wrong with a son following in a father's footsteps.
(Applause.) When you're in there voting for Connie, make
sure you put Mel Martinez in the United States Senate.
(Applause.)

I want to thank my friend, Congressman Mark Foley, for
joining us today. I appreciate the Mayor of Fort Myers,
being here. Mayor Humphrey, thanks for coming. I want to
thank the Attorney General for joining us. I want to thank
the House Speaker. Listen, I want to thank all the people
who are serving for coming here today. (Applause.) I thank
my friend, Daron Norwood, for singing to help entertain
you before the -- before we made it here. (Applause.)

Most of all, I want to thank you. I want to thank the
people putting up the signs, making the phone calls, doing
all the hard work at the grassroots level. With your help,
we'll carry Florida again and win a great victory. (Applause.)

We've just got 10 days to go in this campaign. And voters
have a clear choice between two very different candidates
with different approaches and different records. You know
where I stand. (Applause.) And sometimes -- and sometimes,
you even know where my opponent stands. (Laughter.) We
both have -- we both have records. I am proudly running
on mine. (Applause.) The Senator is running from his. (Laughter.)
And there's a reason why. There's a reason why. There is
a mainstream in American politics, and my opponent sits
on the far left bank. (Laughter.) I'm a compassionate conservative
and proudly so. (Applause.)

This election comes down to five clear choices for American
families, five choices on issues of great consequence:
your family's security, your family's budget, your quality
of life, your retirement, and the bedrock values that are
so critical to our families and to our future. (Applause.)

The first clear choice is very important because it concerns
the security of our country and the security of your family.
All our progresses on every issue depends on the safety
of our citizens. This will be the first presidential election
since September the 11th, 2001. Americans will go to the
poll in a time of war and ongoing threats unlike any we
have faced before. The terrorists who killed thousands
of innocent people are still dangerous and determined to
strike us again. The outcome of this election will set
the direction of the war against terror. The most solemn
duty of the American President is to protect the American
people. (Applause.) If America shows uncertainty or weakness
in this decade, the world will drift toward tragedy. This
will not happen on my watch. (Applause.)

Since that terrible morning of September the 11th, 2001,
with have fought the terrorists across the Earth -- not
for pride, not for power, but because the lives of our
citizens are at stake. Our strategy is clear. We've strengthened
protections for our homeland. We're reforming our intelligence
capabilities. To meet the changing threat in today's world,
we are transforming our all-volunteer army -- I will keep
it an all-volunteer army. (Applause.) We're on the offensive;
we will stay on the offensive. And we're succeeding. More
than three-quarters of al Qaeda's key members and associates
have been brought to justice, and the rest of them know
we're on their trail. (Applause.)

My opponent has a very different approach. He says that
September the 11th -- he says that September the 11th --
quote -- "didn't change me much at all." End
quote.

AUDIENCE: Booo!

THE PRESIDENT: And that's pretty clear. He considers the
war on terror primarily a law enforcement and intelligence-gathering
operation.

AUDIENCE: Booo!

THE PRESIDENT: His top foreign policy advisor questioned
it is even a war at all, saying, it's like a metaphor,
like the war on poverty.

AUDIENCE: Booo!

THE PRESIDENT: Anyone who thinks we are fighting a metaphor
does not understand the enemy we face. (Applause.) You
cannot win a war if you are not convinced we're even in
one. Senator Kerry also misunderstands our battle against
the insurgents and terrorists in Iraq. After voting to
authorize force against Saddam Hussein, after calling it,
the right decision, when I sent troops into Iraq, the Senator
now calls it, the wrong war.

AUDIENCE: Booo!

THE PRESIDENT: The Senator used to recognize that Saddam
Hussein was a gathering threat who hated America. After
all, he said so. He used to recognize that Saddam was a
state sponsor of terror with a history of pursuing and
even using weapons of mass destruction. After all, he said
so. He used to understand that Saddam was a major source
of instability in the Middle East. After all, he said so.
And when he voted to authorize force, the Senator must
have recognized the nightmare scenario that terrorists
might somehow access weapons of mass destruction. Senator
Kerry seems to have forgotten all of that, as his position
has evolved during the course of the campaign. You might
call it election amnesia. (Applause.) I know then and I
know now that America and the world are safer with Saddam
Hussein sitting in a prison cell. (Applause.)

Senator Kerry now calls Iraq a diversion.

AUDIENCE: Booo!

THE PRESIDENT: But the case of just one terrorist shows
how wrong his thinking is. It's a man named Zarqawi. He's
responsible for planting car bombs and beheading Americans
in Iraq. I want you to remember, he ran a terrorist camp,
a terrorist training camp, in Afghanistan until our forces
arrived to destroy that camp. (Applause.) He then fled
to Iraq. He recently publicly announced his allegiance
to Osama bin Laden. If Zarqawi and his associates were
not busy fighting American forces in Iraq, what does Senator
Kerry think, that he'd be a small businessman? (Laughter.)
That he'd be living a peaceful life, making positive contributions
to society somewhere? I don't think so. Our troops will
defeat them there so we do not have to face them in our
own cities. (Applause.)

The choice in this election cannot be clearer. You cannot
lead our nation to the decisive victory on which the security
of every American family depends if you do not see the
true dangers of the post-September 11th world. My opponent
has a September the 10th point of view. At convention --
at his convention, he declared that his strategy will be
to respond to attacks after America is hit.

AUDIENCE: Booo!

THE PRESIDENT: That would be too late. In our debates,
he said, with a straight face, we can defend America only
if we pass a global test.

AUDIENCE: Booo!

THE PRESIDENT: I'm not making that up. I heard him. He
was standing right there when he said it. (Applause.) I
will work with our friends and allies, but I will never
turn over our national security decisions to leaders of
other countries. (Applause.)

I want to thank the veterans who are here. (Applause.)
I want to thank the military families who are here. (Applause.)
I want to thank those who wear the uniform who are here.
(Applause.) You will have the full support of our government.
That's why I went to Congress and proposed $87 billion
of funding. I want -- as you gather up the vote, I want
you to remind your fellow citizens of this startling statistic.
Four members of the United States Senate voted to authorize
the use of force and then voted against funding for our
troops in combat -- only four members, two of whom were
my opponent and his running mate.

AUDIENCE: Booo!

THE PRESIDENT: My opponent is a person that said he actually
did vote for the $87 billion right before he voted against
it. He then said the whole thing was a complicated matter.
There's nothing complicated about supporting our troops
in harm's way. (Applause.)

I believe -- I believe in the transformational power of
liberty. I want you to recognize what's happened in Afghanistan.
That country has gone from darkness to light. (Applause.)
Young girls couldn't go to school some three-and-a-half
years ago. Their mothers were whipped in the public square
if they didn't toe the line of these barbaric Taliban.
Today, because we defended ourselves, freedom is on the
march. Millions voted in a presidential election. The first
voter was a 19-year-old woman, and the world is better
off for it. (Applause.)

Despite ongoing violence, Iraq has an interim government.
It's building up its own security forces. We're headed
toward elections in January. You see, we're safer, America
is safer with Afghanistan and Iraq on the road to democracy.
We can be proud that 50 million citizens of those countries
now live as free men and women. (Applause.) We must understand
that free societies help us keep the peace. I believe strongly
in freedom. Freedom is not America's gift to the world;
freedom is the Almighty God's gift to each man and woman
in this world. (Applause.)

The second clear choice in this election concerns your
family budget. When I ran for President four years ago,
I pledged to lower taxes for America's families. I kept
my word. (Applause.) We doubled the child credit to $1,000
per child. We reduced the marriage penalty. Our tax code
ought to encourage marriage, not penalize marriage. (Applause.)
We dropped the lowest bracket to 10 percent to help our
families. We reduced income taxes for everybody who pays
taxes. As a result of these good policies, real after-tax
income, the money in your pocket, the money you get to
use, is up about 10 percent since I took office. (Applause.)

Our economy has been through a lot. See, that stock market
was in serious decline six months prior to my inauguration.
That stock market decline foretold a recession. And then
we had some corporate scandals. By the way, we made it
clear, we're not going to tolerate dishonesty in the boardrooms
of this country. (Applause.) And then we got attacked,
and those attacks hurt our economy. We lost about a million
jobs in the three months after September the 11th. But
our economic policies have led us back to growth, and that's
good for American families. Our economy is growing at rates
as fast as any in nearly 20 years. We've added 1.9 million
new jobs since August of 2003. The national unemployment
rate is 5.4 percent, lower than the average of the 1970s,
the 1980s, and the 1990s. (Applause.) The unemployment
rate in your great state is 4.5 percent. (Applause.) We're
moving forward.

My opponent has different plans for your budget. He intends
to take a big chunk out of it.

AUDIENCE: Booo!

THE PRESIDENT: When I asked Congress to help grow this
economy and help our American families, he voted against
the higher child credit, he voted against marriage penalty
relief, he voted against lower taxes. If he had had his
way, the average middle-class family would be paying $2,000
more a year to the federal government.

AUDIENCE: Booo!

THE PRESIDENT: It's kind of part of a pattern. He voted
10 times to raise taxes on gasoline as a United States
Senator. And all told, during his 20 years in the Senate,
he voted 98 times to raise taxes.

AUDIENCE: Booo!

THE PRESIDENT: Think about it. It's about five times a
year he's voted to raise taxes. When a Senator does something
that often, he must really enjoy it. (Laughter.) And that's
a warning. That's a predictable pattern. During the campaign,
he's made a lot of big, expensive promises. He's promised
about $2.2 trillion of new spending. That's with a "T." (Laughter.)
That's a lot even for a Senator from Massachusetts. (Laughter.)

So they said, how are you going to pay for it. And he
said, oh, I'm just going to tax the rich. We have heard
that before. First of all, when you raise the top two brackets,
you know who you're taxing -- you're taxing job creators.
Most small businesses pay tax at the individual income
tax rate. Seventy percent of new jobs in America are created
by small businesses. Raising taxes on small businesses
is lousy economic policy. (Applause.)

When you talk about running up the top two brackets or
taxing the rich, you raise about $600 billion or $800 billion,
depending on who's counting, but remember, that's far short
of the $2.2 trillion he promised. So there's a gap, a gap
between what he's promised and how he's going to raise
the money. And guess who usually gets to fill the gap.

AUDIENCE: We do!

THE PRESIDENT: That's exactly right. And finally, the
rich hire lawyers and accountants during tax time for a
reason. That's to slip the tab and stick you with the bill.
We're not going to let him raise your taxes. We're going
to carry Florida and win a great victory in November. (Applause.)

AUDIENCE: Four more years! Four more years! Four more
years!

THE PRESIDENT: The third clear choice -- the third clear
choice in this election involves the quality of life for
our nation's families. I believe a good education and quality
health care are important to a successful life. (Applause.)
When I ran for President four years ago, I promised to
end the soft bigotry of low expectations by reforming our
public schools. I kept my word. (Applause.) We passed the
No Child Left Behind Act, meaningful education reforms
to bring high standards to our classrooms and to make schools
more accountable to our parents. We're making progress.
Math and reading scores are rising. We're closing an achievement
gap by helping all students. We will build on these reforms.
We will extend them to our high school so that no child
is left behind in America. (Applause.)

We will continue to improve life for our families by making
health care more available and more affordable. We'll expand
health savings accounts so more small businesses can cover
their workers and more families will be able to get health
care accounts they can manage and call their own. We will
create association health plans so small businesses can
join together to buy insurance at the same discounts big
companies get. (Applause.)

We will help families in need by expanding community health
centers, and making sure every eligible child is enrolled
in our government's low-income health programs. We'll help
patients and doctors everywhere by doing something about
the frivolous lawsuits that run up the cost of your practice
and run good doctors out of business. (Applause.) We want
our doctors focusing on fighting illnesses, not on fighting
frivolous lawsuits. (Applause.) These lawsuits are a national
problem that require a national solution. I am for medical
liability reform. (Applause.)

Senator Kerry has a different point of view on our schools
and health care system. Listen, he voted for the No Child
Left Behind Act, but now wants to weaken the accountability
standards. He's proposed including measures like teacher
attendance to judge whether students can read or write
or add and subtract.

AUDIENCE: Booo!

THE PRESIDENT: He voted against health savings accounts.
He opposes association health plans. He has voted 10 times
against medical liability reform.

AUDIENCE: Booo!

THE PRESIDENT: You heard him in the debates the other
day mouth something about helping our docs and patients.
Remember, he put a personal injury trial lawyer on the
ticket. (Applause.) He can run from his record, but he
cannot hide. (Applause.)

Now he's proposing a big government health care plan that
would cause 8 million families to lose private coverage
they get at work and have to go onto a government plan.
Eighty percent of the people who get coverage under his
idea would be enrolled in a government program. In one
of our debates, he tried to tell America that when it comes
to his health care plan -- and I quote -- "The government
has nothing to do with it." (Laughter.) I could barely
contain myself. (Laughter.) He can run from his record,
but he cannot hide. (Applause.)

My opponent's plan would move America down the road to
federal control of health care, and that is the wrong road
for American families. (Applause.) In all we do to improve
health care in a new term, we will make sure the decisions
are made by doctors and patients, not by officials in Washington,
D.C. (Applause.)

The fourth clear choice in this election involves your
retirement. Our nation has made a solemn commitment to
our seniors on Medicare and Social Security. When I ran
for President four years ago, I promised to keep that commitment.
I promised to improve Medicare by adding prescription drug
coverage for our seniors. I kept my word. (Applause.) You
remember those endless debates -- leaders on both political
parties have talked about strengthening Medicare for years.
We got the job done. Seniors are now getting discounts
on medicine through drug discount cards. Low-income seniors
are getting $600 to help them this year and next year,
and beginning in 2006, all seniors will be able to get
prescription drugs coverage under Medicare. (Applause.)

My opponent voted against the Medicare bill that included
prescription drug coverage, even though it was supported
by AARP and other senior groups. Later he said -- quote
-- "If I'm the President, we're going to repeal that
phony bill." Then a little later he said, no, I don't
want to repeal it. Sounds familiar. As your President for
the next four years, I will defend the reforms we have
worked so hard to pass and keep the promise to America's
seniors. (Applause.)

And we will keep the promise of Social Security for our
seniors. And as we do so, we will strengthen Social Security
for generations to come. Every election -- every election,
desperate politicians try to scare our seniors about Social
Security. It's just predictable. You remember in the 2000
campaign, they ran the ads telling our seniors, if George
W. gets elected, you won't get your Social Security check.
Well, when you're out gathering up the vote, remind our
seniors that George W. did get elected and our seniors
did get their checks. (Applause.)

And our seniors will continue to get their checks. And
baby boomers are in pretty good shape when it comes to
the Social Security trust. But we all must be concerned
about our children and our grandchildren. Some day, our
youngest workers will retire, and we've got to make sure
the Social Security system will be there when they need
it. I believe younger workers ought to be able to take
some of their own money and put it into a personal savings
account, a personal savings account that will earn a better
rate of return, a personal savings account they can call
their own, an account the government cannot take away.
(Applause.)

Once again, my opponent takes a different point of view.
He talks about protecting Social Security, but he's the
only candidate in this race who voted eight times for higher
taxes on Social Security benefits.

AUDIENCE: Booo!

THE PRESIDENT: And when it comes to the next generation,
he has offered nothing. The job of the President is to
confront problems, not to pass them on to future generations
and future Presidents. In a new term, I will bring Republicans
and Democrats together to strengthen Social Security for
an upcoming generation of America. (Applause.)

The fifth choice in this election is on the values that
are so crucial to keeping our family strong. And here,
my opponent and I are miles apart. I believe marriage is
a sacred commitment -- (applause) -- a pillar of our civilization,
and I will defend it. (Applause.) This is not a partisan
issue. When Congress passed the Defense of Marriage Act,
defining marriage as a union of a man and a woman, the
vast majority of Democrats supported it. My predecessor,
President Clinton, signed it into law. But Senator Kerry
was part of an out-of-the-mainstream minority that voted
against the Defense of Marriage Act.

AUDIENCE: Booo!

THE PRESIDENT: I believe that reasonable people can find
common ground on difficult issues. Republicans and Democrats
and many citizens on both sides of the life issue came
together and agreed that we should ban the brutal practice
of partial birth abortions. (Applause.) Senator Kerry was
part of an out-of-the-mainstream minority that voted against
the ban.

AUDIENCE: Booo!

THE PRESIDENT: He voted against parental notification
laws.

AUDIENCE: Booo!

THE PRESIDENT: Against the Unborn Victims of Violence
Act.

AUDIENCE: Booo!

THE PRESIDENT: I will continue to reach out to Americans
of every belief and move this good-hearted nation toward
a culture of life. (Applause.)

My opponent has said that the heart and soul of America
can be found in Hollywood.

AUDIENCE: Booo!

THE PRESIDENT: Most American families do not look to Hollywood
as a source of values. The heart and soul of America is
found right here in Fort Myers, Florida. (Applause.)

All these choices make this one of the most important
elections in our history. The security and prosperity of
our country, the health and education of our families,
the retirement of our seniors and the direction of our
culture are all at stake. The decision is in the best hands,
because the decision belongs to the American people. (Applause.)

I see a bright future for America. I see a better day
for all of us. One of my favorite quotes war written by
a fellow Texan, Tom Lea. He said, "Sarah and I live
on the east side of the mountain. It's the sunrise side,
not the sunset side. It is the side to see the day that
is coming, not to see the day that is gone." (Applause.)
If you listen carefully to this campaign, my opponent has
spent much of this campaign talking about the day that
is gone. I see the day that is coming.

We've been through a lot together in the last four years.
Because we've done the hard work of climbing that mountain,
we can see the valley below. We'll protect our families.
We'll build their prosperity. We will defend the deepest
values. We'll spread freedom in this world, and as we do
so, we'll keep America safe and spread the peace. (Applause.)

Four years ago, when I traveled your great state asking
for the vote, I made this pledge. I said if I was elected,
I would uphold the honor and the dignity of the office
to which I had been elected. With your help, I will do
so for four more years. God bless. Thanks for coming. (Applause.)